Microsoft abandons personal AI chatbot race with Copilot reboot

Microsoft Corp. is merging the consumer and workplace versions of its Copilot AI assistant into one product aimed at corporate customers, ceding the crowded market for personal chatbots to OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and, now, Meta Platforms Inc.

At an event in Seattle earlier this week, Microsoft executives gave a few dozen business and technology leaders a preview of what they’re calling the new Copilot. The result of a six-month engineering effort, the latest iteration of the assistant has absorbed the separate version for home use, adopting some of its slick design features, and casting aside the marketing that sought to position the company as a builder of personal AI.